Jaime in Winter
by Miims
Summary: AU: Wherein Joanna tells Tywin about Jaime and Cercei. Tywin's solution? Foster Jaime in the North.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Jamie likes to fight. At nine he is the best at the Rock among his age group. Some try to use great strength against him, try to sweep him out the way, but he outlasts them. Others use their wits and still others play defensively, but he beats them all. His father has to hire a man specifically from King's Landing to train him. Ser Nestor of the Vale is very good, and he always beats Jaime. Their first spar is jarring. Jaime tries to forget it after.

When Jaime fights he feels like his father. Tywin Lannister sits on the throne of the Rock like his mother, the Lady Jeyne, had birthed him on it and for it. It is an affinity Jaime himself never feels for the seat. But when he has a sword in his hand! When he has one in his hand he feels as capable as his father.

When he is with Cercei it is the same. She tells him what is right, and he believes it, knows it: for is it not said he was born into the world holding onto her foot? He loves fighting and he loves Cercei. He would do anything for the either, but especially loves wielding the first for the second. Jamie loves Cercei, often asks why they cannot be open, wonder why Westeros frowns upon the love he has for his sister when Targayans have been wedding each other for years?

Why their mother looks at them with that look that she has: horror mingled with disappointment when she catches them.

Joanna drags them apart, and the look Cercei sends their mother is of pure loathing, but Joanna, whose glare is greater, yanks them apart, and there it is. One of those defining moments. If Jaime were the type to believe in signs, looking back, this would have been one.

Their mother goes into early labor, Cercei whispers, "She will separate us," but Jaime doesn't care.

"Father, come quick!" he screams through the halls, and it works, servants come pouring out. Tywin with them, he sees his wife, her right hand held tight in Jamie's left, her left hand clutched around her middle.

Tywin scoops her up, a brief flash of despair, before he is father again, strong, insurmountable Tywin. The lion of Lannister. His father has a very straight back, it doesn't bend through the night, and the next day, not even when their mother's shouts dampen.

The baby's cries echo through the halls. All else is quite. Jaime sits in the sept, his head bowed before the mother trying to find the words to ask after his mother. He is there bowing when he feels a hand on his shoulder yanking him up violently.

"Your mother is dead. That won't help," _it never will._ That is what Jaime hears after, though he wonders if it his own fancy.

"And the baby?"

Tywin does not answer, nobody will. He can't find Cercei, is not sure he wants too, so he goes searching for it. His younger sibling. It is, well, it's a shock. He has a younger brother. An imp they whisper. But Jaime sees his tiny pink hands and wonders at them. To be honest Tyrion, that is the name their father has given him, is a bit ugly. But Jaime laughs, this is what has his father so vexed? Jaime does not know what his father has lost.

Jaime doesn't ask himself why, but rather why not. And when Tyrion's tiny hand reaches out to grasp his own Jaime's choice is made. He has a little brother.

Joanna's body still warms the ground when the Dornish party comes to visit. Lorenza Martell is not beautiful, especially not when compared to his sister. But she is striking in the way that those women who look a bit like a man can be. Oberyn is striking in the way that his mother is, though it suits him better, though Jaime decides he doesn't like him. Elia is there to, and she is forgettable.

She is forgettable till he walks in on her and Oberyn and Cercei gathered around Tyrion. Then he is angry. He has not seen this side of Cercei and he does not like it. She is squeezing his cock and Tyrion is crying, and Jaime has had enough.

"Cercei, what are you doing?"

His sister doesn't even look ashamed, just irritated and… something else, though Jaime can't tell what it is.

"I was showing them our little brother," though the way she says little brother could also be used to say many other things, all of them unsavory.

Jaime looks at Tyrion and his sister, "Maybe we should show them the lions instead."

But that doesn't make her look any happier. And she Loves seeing the lions. Instead she gets mad (at him!), though she seems outwardly to agree, "Yes Jaime, that is a better idea."

She gathers her skirts sweeps out of the room leaving a bewildered Jaime. Oberyn looks between the two and laughs before following Cercei out of the room, but before he can stalk after him Elia is there. She doesn't say anything, just smiles, but Jaime decides that she looks pretty when she smiles, for all that she is sickly.

Cercei doesn't speak to him for the rest of the day, though she lets him into her chambers that evening. He wants to hold her hand, but before he can manage it, she yanks it away.

"Why did you do that?"

Jaime can't see why his sister is so… he does not have a word for what she is yet, "Do what?"

"Defend it!"

Now she is really being strange, "Tyrion?" Jaime smiles and shrugs, "He is our brother."

Cercei glares at him, "And I am your twin. Your other half." She punctuates the second sentence with particular force.

Jaime reaches out for her hand again, "Yes you are," though she is still irritated enough to pull away. Jaime wonders at his sister for a moment, "Why are you doing this?"

Something flashes across Cercei's face, it flies by so fast that putting a name to it would be difficult, but Jaime sees it. Then she stills and Jaime holds his breath. Instead of the tidal wave he was expecting though, Cercei is all smiles. Jaime still sees the anger behind her eyes, but he will let is pass.

Sometimes his twin can be very difficult.

"Jaime, you are my other half." Of course, she is, "So why are we letting this thing get between us?"

"Nothing could get between us!" Apparently he says this with enough gusto to make his sister happy, because she lets it go. But Jaime decides that its probably better to not bring Tyrion up again in his sister's presence. He is sure that she will see it as he does eventually.

It is Cercei who moves to draw his hand to her heart, but the door opens instead. Their father stands before them, the light from the torches in the hall outlines his head of golden hair making it glow, and the shadow he casts into Cercei's room encompasses both of them. Jaime wonders for half a moment if Cercei was wrong about their mother passing what she saw to their father, that she died before she could do so. (Jaime had tried to forget that moment, tried not to worry, because the Triumph on Cercei's face had drenched Jaime's heart in cold water).

Then Jaime knows that their father knows because the look he gives them, the slow one that opens the soul, is the one that he usually reserves for bannermen who are being particularly stupid. But it's more than that. It's disgust too.

Their father has always been to the point, "I am returning to King's Landing tomorrow. Cercei, you will be coming with me."

Cercei opens her mouth to say something, but their father cuts her off with the coldest look either have ever seen, "Jaime, you will stay here," and _learn how to properly be my heir_ is the unspoken, but he also includes _don't disappoint me_.

They leave the next morning. Jaime doesn't know what to do. He has never spent a day without Cercei, but father, Jaime doesn't know how to deal with their father, especially not now that their mother is gone. Cercei cries and pleads, but it only makes him more adamant to separate the two. Their father says nothing, but he knows. Cercei does not think he does, but how can she be so blind? Can't she see how he looks at them? Like… well, their father has never looked at Jaime that way ever, and he doesn't want him too again.

Cercei is not here, nothing is the same. They write, but there is a whole that letters cannot fill.

Years pass, their father sends instructions for him to learn how to run the keep, but Jaime slips out of them. The best way to describe it caged, he feels caged with his father's expectations hanging round his shoulders. He escapes to the practice fields and beats every squire roundly, and his father's men comment that he is too young. Too young to be so talented, or too young to be cooped in his father's study, Jaime can't tell, but he thinks maybe they mean both.

It is three years of this, three years of playing the lordling for their father when he would much rather be a knight. Think on it! Jaime does as he swings his sword round the Rock. Maybe he can be Duncan the Tall! Ser Duncan the Tall, he reminds himself. Tyrion is watching him, and Jaime can't help but show off for his younger brother (who already shows more promise for ruling at three than Jaime at eleven).

"Up! Up!" his brother says, and Jaime can't help but oblige. Uncle Gerion laughs at them both, but then swings his sword at them most playfully.

Seeing the game for what it is, Jaime brandishes his own, one hand held in Tryion's to balance the boy, and the other for his sword, they, well it's not exactly a fight, more like a mummers spectacle, but it gets Tyrion to laugh.

Jaime playfully stabs their uncle between his arm ribcage, whereupon Gerion closes the opening and falls to the ground with a somewhat exaggerated, "Slain, I am slain, Noble night you have vanquished me!" much to the amusement of both Tyrion and Jaime.

But Gerion stills and Jaime feels the silence behind him as he normally feels the chains of it around his neck. Tyrion turns first and slips down Jaime to stand by his brother and both bow carefully.

Tywin Lannister spares a censorious glare for his brother, who laughs it away, but then turns his gaze to Jaime.

"What time is it Jaime?"

"It's just past-"

But Tywin silences his literal answer with a disapproving look, lately it's the only look Jaime has managed to receive from his father. Maybe he should try to be a better lordling?

"I wasn't aware the Maester had let you out of his lessons."

He hadn't, earlier in the day Jaime had decided that there were more… pressing matters to attend too. Yes, that sounded good.

His father only says, "It will not happen again."

Jaime shifts and stays silent, while Tywin Lannister remains in King's Landing he had no real say in Jaime's daily existence. Still, it is better not to draw attention to that.

"You will attend your studies everyday, you will stop this nonsense" here his father's eyes swept the room, "and you will do all of this from King's Landing, where I can keep a closer eye on you."

His father stays a month to put his affairs in order, but spends as much time stalking the halls of the Rock or the streets of Lannisport. For a man who prides himself on control his father has certainly done a terrible job of reigning in his anger, at least to those who know him. Uncles Tygett and Gerion certainly avoid him, though Kevan braves the worst of it. Jaime decides then that Uncle Kevan is the bravest.

But it could be worse. Tywin ignores Tyrion; and so long Jaime tries to fit the role his father would have of him, he also avoids their father's ire. So why? Duskendale. That word whispered passes his ears more than once. But what exactly does that mean? Somebody finally speaks and when Jaime realizes it's about the King he laughs, of course it is. His father neither liked nor respected Aerys. Though some say that once upon a time they were friends. Ridiculous.

And for the Red Keep they are bound.

Jaime's excitement mingles with- well he doesn't really want to go with his father, but he does want to see Cercei. There is probably a better way to describe the sickness he feels from these mixed emotions, but really he has no say in the matter. Once Tywin Lannister decides something, the world moves for him.

Tyrion cries, but Jaime promises to write him as soon as his younger brother begins working on his letters, it is sure to happen soon seeing as his brother is very clever. With that he leaves behind his childhood home, and his brother and heads for The Red Keep, a mad King, and a sister he hasn't seen for the better part of three years. He only really registers one of these things.

The there is the King's Landing. The small folk applaud their father because he is golden, and a lion, and because they all know who really runs the kingdom, and he basks in the glow, but waits still. Cercei, when he sees her, and he really only has eyes for her, never mind King's Landing and it's stink, is beautiful. Why had they ever been separated? When they were younger he would have run towards her, or she towards him, but they don't now. His father restrains him, and Cercei restrains herself. So they meet before the gates of the Red Keep and wait with baited breath till they are alone.

But that moment never comes. Always there is a Septa, or a maid, or valet nearby, and when Cercei tries to dismiss them they all say the same thing, "Orders of the hand."

Cercei is livid and while walking the halls of the red keep they whisper to each other as they once did as children, hands held between them, heads dipped together

"I will figure out a way. Father listens to me," her hand digs into his wrist.

But not here, not now. People do not laugh in King's Landing. The Queen, who Cercei serves, is beautiful, but… tragic. King's Landing, Jaime likes it little but for Cercei. But when Jaime tries to tell her of home and he gets to Tyrion an anger rises from her. Anger, it is not a word he has ever used for his sister. Cercei is sweet and right, but she is not sweet or right when she speaks of Tyrion, a boy she has not seen since he was an infant. When he tries to tell her this, her frown seeps with the anger in her eyes and she sends him from her room in a screaming fit.

They do not speak for three days for all that Jaime follows her around, with his presence asking for her forgiveness. She ignores him and instead gazes at the Prince.

Jaime watches him too, but for different reasons. Cercei looks at Rhaegar Targaryan the same way she looks at him, but different, dreamier.

He finally gets a response when he brings it up, "The Prince, Rhaegar, you want him."

Cercei flushes red all the way down her chest, but denies it, "I want to be Queen," and then, "there is a difference."

Jaime nods, Cercei is his, as he is hers. But the looks his sister gives Rhaegar don't leave him so he says the next day, "We could leave."

"Leave?" Cercei… ascertains him, looks at him like their father looks at him sometimes (Like she finds him wanting).

Jaime flushes, with embarrassment and anger, "Yes leave, for the free cities. I will be the best swordsman anywhere I go, I can pay for our lives there. We can be whatever we want." _We can love each other as we want too._

But Cercei must think he is joking, because she laughs, "Jaime don't be silly."

"I wasn't."

The clipped way he answered tips her off, because she changes her tone, "We can't leave father. What would he do without us?"

She says a lot more, but doesn't answer his questions about Rhargar Targaryan. It is Jaime's turn for anger. He stalks off to the practice yards and begins hacking away. He does not know whose face he imagines as he parries and slashes, but it does not make him feel better. In the background he hears it, talk about the Lannisters. But what good is being a Lannister is he can't have what he wants!

"You're the Lannister boy?"

Of course he is! Jaime thinks this as he counters a particularly nasty parry from his invisible opponent. Then there is a hand on his shoulder turning him round; nobody ever does that to him! He does the only thing he can think to do, and slashes with particular ferocity from the man's right shoulder across to his left hip. But the man counters!

It brings Jaime back to his first lessons with Ser Nestor all those years ago. How utterly outclassed he had been then and is now. Jaime loathes admitting it. There are some who fight with endurance: waiting for their opponents to get sloppy and show an opening. Some use their speed to make openings, others use power to brush their opponents sword aside, there are other ways to. Most of the people Jaime fights use boyish enthusiasm and blunted minds to swing through to their opponent. But what use is that if there is a blade in the way? This man knows how to fight.

Jaime depends on his skill with the blade to get him though, most of the people he fights are older and therefore stronger, so he can't just bat their blades aside. Instead he normally feigns incompetence, before slowly revealing his skill and utterly defeating them.

Jaime loves the way men look when they realize they have been outclassed by an eleven year old.

But this man, while he does appear shocked, just frowns and concentrates all the harder. The man has no obvious openings. He has been fighting long enough that he has recognized his own weaknesses and removed them, or compensated for them. One moment Jaime lunges, thinking that he will hit the man, the next he is flat on his back in the dirt.

Anger, shock, all of these register. He is so mad! He tries to remember the last time someone had beaten him this badly, but can't. Ser Nestor, maybe. Maybe. So he does the only thing he knows how to do in these situations and laughs. It's a trick he has learned from uncle Gerion.

Jaime eyes the man before him, and everything else slowly registers. The violet eyes, the white hair and the matching white cloak… he has heard of this man. A Dayne…

"You're Ser Arthur Dayne!" Jaime laughs again, this time maybe it's a bit more authentic. Ser Arthur looks down on him, not quite sure what to do, before he holds out his hand to help him up. Jaime looks at it for a moment from his position sprawled on the ground, before deciding that, no, he is a lion, and he does not need help to stand. Ser Arthur does not look offended though, and for that he rises another notch in Jaime's estimation. Not that he is obvious about his admiration of the man, Arthur Dayne is not the type of man Jaime's Lord father would want his son to esteem.

"And you are the Lannister boy."

"Jaime," he readily agrees, and decides to meet this man everyday. And though Cercei is not forgotten, running into Ser Arthur at the training grounds (not trailing after, lions never trail after anybody), makes ignoring her that much easier. His father has been quite recently, so Jaime can do what he wants, though he has not gotten so bold as to openly defy what his father has ordered.

"You are very good," Ser Arthur says to him in passing one day.

"I am," he is better than very good and will one day beat Ser Arthur. He knows this. Though it might be some time yet… or maybe not.

But it had been the wrong thing to say. Ser Arthur frowns at him, so Jaime adds, "but I can be better."

In his head he adds, _just because I am better than everyone around me, does not mean that I can't be better._

This seems to appease Ser Arthur because he nods, "Your father would be proud."

But it's not a fact is it? His father is proud he will nod and say, _you are my son_, but it is never enough. Jaime does not say this though, he just smiles. Jaime likes to spar, he likes to fight. He wants to be a dragonknight, a King's guard. He wants to be like Ser Arthur. This revelation shocks him. He is supposed to want to be like his father. Instead he thinks, Ser Jaime Lannister. He is in such a good mood that he even goes to talk to Cercei.

She is ecstatic, and manages to push the maid out of the room. Neither openly discusses what had upset them so much last time they spoke. It is not important anyway. He wants to kiss her. They are finally alone in her room. But their father opens the door before he Jaime can so much as lean foreword.

Tywin strides into the room and looks directly at his son, "You are to be fostered with Lord Rickard Stark in Winterfell."

And all Jaime can think is _Where is Winterfell?_


	2. Chapter 2

Lyanna is not sure she likes the Lannister. He is arrogant. He is irritating. He asks all the wrong questions. Unfortunately, he is also very good with the sword. She learns this first.

The incident, as she and Ben have come to call it, had happened two weeks ago.

Brandon had returned from the Ryswell's to greet their father's new ward. He had been away for two years and had sprouted in that time. Gone was Brandon the boy, in his place a man. So when Lyanna thinks back on it, it makes a somewhat ridiculous memory, the Lannister in the yard across from Brandon, four years her brother's junior. But all his height and those four years didn't help him. And when the sleet cleared Brandon lay in the slush, the Lannister boy laughing over him.

But Brandon doesn't like to be laughed at. Lyanna has learned this the hard way. Instead of gracefully accepting defeat, Brandon abandoned his tourney blade and tackled the boy to the ground. Lyanna cheered Brandon on from the sidelines, of course. But the ruckus drew the attention of the master-at-arms who called down father. And well, it was embarrassing after that. Father came out, and there was a great too-do.

Father shouted at Brandon, who sulked mightily, and nobody knew what do with the ward, who hadn't said anything, only scowled ferociously. Father dismissed the boy, and the four Starks in Winterfell lined into father's study. Lyanna, one and ten, felt like a child again, she looked over to Brandon and wondered how he felt, he-a man on five and ten. It was not a… what's the word? Ah, yes, auspicious. It wasn't an auspicious beginning.

"The boy did not say anything to me. What happened?"

Brandon sat in those stony silences he was wont to have and Lyanna hadn't actually seen them start fighting, but by the look on Benjen's face, he had.

Good honest Ben, he was, well, he was the balm for her father's silences.

"Brandon insulted his brother," He said after a brief hesitation.

"What's wrong with his brother?" Lyanna had asked.

Brandon looked at Lyanna and said, "He's an imp, a monster. Half the realm knows."

Their father glared at Brandon across the table and said, "Imp or no, Tyrion Lannister is the son of a Lord of the Realm, you would do wise to remember that."

Rickard Stark looks at his three assembled children. Southern ambitions, their bannermen say, Lyanna had wondered what that meant.

"I do not know why Tywin Lannister fostered his son and heir, but you would do well to remember that the boy is of a rank with you. While he is here he will be serving as my squire-"

"But father, you are not a knight."

Rickard Stark did not look at Lyanna often, but when he did she always wanted him to look away again, "I have many of the same duties, so he can and will squire for me. I expect you to treat him with the deference he is due."

Their father assesses all three of his children, but when his gaze finds Brandon, well, Lyanna was glad their father never looks at her like that.

But Lyanna suspected that there is more too it than just Brandon's lack of respect. Brandon had the wolf's blood- yes. But something must have set him off, and Lyanna has interacted enough with her father's ward to know that it would have been easy.

He was so rude! Weren't southern Knights supposed to spread honor and chivalry wherever they go?_ Ned's letters paint it so. Honor,_ _I wonder Jaime Lannister knows what that word means._ And he was rather simple isn't he? Straightforward.

That had been two weeks ago and she still doesn't like him.

Her anger bleeds over into her sword strikes as she smashes into Ben's blade with her own. But he knows her; he shifts his weight to better take the blow but cannot stop the force of her sword. It flies out of his hand and further into the godswood. Lyanna crows her triumph.

"Any Master-at-Arms in the realm would have trouble with me!"

Shaking his head Benjen says, "Gentle Sister, soft like lamb's wool."

She rolls her eyes at his teasing, "Ah, but I am still a winner."

He laughs high and sweet, as boy are wont to do, and says, "A bad winner. Besides sweet victor, we have lessons."

And didn't that just deflate her? Lessons meant sewing and etiquette, though luckily today was a history day. Which means that she can get Benjen to ask all sorts of fun questions about the great heroes of old.

The Lannister boy is there when they arrive. He looks a bit tired, but manages to throw a smirk their way before they sit down next to him. She hates his smiles.

Maester Walys sits across from them and gracefully raises a brow, "you are late."

Both Starks nod while the Lannister idly drums his fingers on the table.

Maester Walys unsmiling eyes peer at her through his shaggy head of hair, "Punctuality is a virtue Lady Stark."

Lyanna only exhales through her nose. She does not like the way that the Maester calls her Lady. Luckily, she does not tell him this.

Instead they discuss Theon Stark, The Hungry Wolf, for under his reign the North was constantly at war, though mostly with the Ironborn.

_At least the Lannister looks a bored as I feel. _The Maester had even taken whacking the table with his expensive stylus, the one he used for writing, whenever the ward wavered to close to sleep.

"Are you an idiot, boy?" Maester Walys waves his stylus in their general direction and Lyanna stops her eyes mid roll, "You are far behind these histories compared to these two."

The Lannister boy somehow manages a look of boredom with a prideful raising of the hackles. The combination is actually impressive.

"Behind in the histories of the North? Yes- but I don't think they know about his histories of the west as I do," he grins here, grins wider when he sees Maester Walys frown.

"And where, seven-help-us, were you when you left Casterly Rock?"

The boy waves his hand; "There was something about a Lelia Lannister and a war with the Ironmen."

Lyanna leans foreword in spite of herself. Jaime, the Lannister boy, is better traveled than anybody her age that she knows. And he knows new stories! She loves old-nan's tales, but can't help her curiosity about the other realms too.

"What's it about?" Ben is the one to speak up, apparently he also recognizes their well-traveled guest.

The Lannister boy turns to Ben, without a smile for once, and then to Lyanna, he gives her a look she catches him with sometimes. A slow up-and-down- movement of the eyes that Lyanna isn't sure she likes.

And then he shrugs and says, "It's hot a particularly happy history."

"When are they ever?"

The Lannister looks at her and laughs but clears his throat and takes on the tone that everybody seems to find when telling tales, "Lelia Lannister was married to… Harmund Hoare-"

"Harmund II Hoare, the Haggler."

Lyanna almost shushes the Maester, but catches herself in time.

"A king of the Iron Islands. He," he pauses as he tries to remember the history, "had been a ward of the rock in his youth and married one of the Kings daughters-Lelia Lannister. She became Queen of the Iron Islands, but for some reason the priests-"

"drowned men-"

"Mutilated her, so the King on the Rock rose his bannermen and defeated the ironmen."

Lyanna said, "That's all?"

The Lannister threw a curious glance her way that turned triumphant and said, "Aubrey Crakehall threw down the usurper in single combat."

Lyanna wanted more though, but Maester Walys, seeing what was coming, cut in, "It is much more complicated than that. But we are discussing Northern History now."

Lyanna opened her mouth to complain, but it was Benjen who beat her too it, "Maester Walys', our father has a ward from The Rock, surely it would benefit us to learn about the history of The West," Ben's voice dies down at bit at the end, but he gets the point across. The Lannister looks at Benjen like he has grown a second head, but Lyanna knows her brother only as a peace keeper, so his diplomacy does not surprise her.

The Maester sighs and rubs circles on his temple with his right index finger but says, "Very Well."

So they learn a new history. It's like their own Northern Histories, to be honest, only the names are different. But then every one of the seven kingdoms has had problems with the Ironborn at one point of another. Still, she likes hearing about new places and people. She does not like that the only role that Lelia Lannister plays is that of the disfigured wife that sends the men off to war.

When she makes this known The Lannister only says, "Don't worry, Lannister women are…" but he doesn't finish the thought.

_I wish I had been born a man;_ the thought is an old familiar one. Lyanna sighs, her breath catches a stand of her hair and in a puff it floats across her face.

Lyanna spends the next few days avoiding her lessons, she hates sewing, instead she pulls Ben into the godswood, for training. She traps Ben between a rock and a heart tree and smirks down at her younger brother. Ben frowns, but her own smile falls down too, someone claps behind them, laughing.

"Lannister."

"Stark."

Neither says anything after that for a moment, and Lyanna stomach turns, she doesn't know what to say in this situation, so she keeps quite. Across from her the Lannister still smirks. _Is that the only face he knows?_ But he makes no moves, does not turn back to Winterfell, and does not seem inclined to tell their father. Lyanna recognizes all this, what she doesn't recognize is why.

"What?"

"I want to know if you want to fight me."

He has a practice sword held loosely in his right hand and holds it up, limp, but pointed in her general direction, "Unless you are afraid."

And that's that, later she will think it's the wolf's blood that made her do it. But in the heat of the moment she realizes the truth, she needs to prove herself. A few moments later she finds herself on her back in the dirt. He is smiling down at her, his tourney blade slung across his shoulder; absurdly she wishes that it were a real sword so that it might cut into the tendons there.

He is all chivalry again when the deed is done. She slaps the hand he holds out, stands, and cuts at him again. And again, and again. And the result is the same.

Lyanna, having nothing better to do, calls him out, "Do you enjoy beating the same person over and over again like this?"

The Lannister, Jaime, looks at her again, and it's that cat-green look that unnerves her.

Finally that familiar smile settles onto his face, "And you are better? Always fighting your brother who is a boy of eight?"

Lyanna flushes crimson, not from anger or embarrassment, but rather from shame. Her eyes find Benjen whose face says _don't bring me into this_.

She looks away and says, "He's nine."

All three sit in the silence after that, Lyanna stews in her shame, The Lannister-well, who knows, and Ben hasn't really spoken at all.

But he breaks the hush then, "Well, what do you expect her to do? It's not like the Master-at-arms will train her."

"I can do that."

Silence, Ben has not been expecting that answer and so cannot find a reply, and Lyanna is too stunned to speak.

Bitter Lyanna says "A joke."

"No."

She doesn't trust this southerner, isn't father always saying that they have no honor? But… "Why?"

The Lannister does not look at her this time. Instead his gaze loops around, never settling until his reaches the sky. For a brief moment something flashes across his face. Loneliness, maybe, if southerners are capable of feeling it, but at the very least she sees the vivid flash of a memory. For the first time Lyanna wonders what its like to be so young and so far away from home.

Whatever he is thinking though doesn't matter; it's his reply that causes her thoughts to stammer to a halt.

The boy says, "Because I can."

From there it is easy. The three of them become awkward but willing conspirators.

And when Lyanna says, "What were you even doing in the godswood?"

Instead of diverting their questions, as he does when he feels like it, he says, "I was exploring."

As it turns out, father had dismissed him for the day, and Ser Nestor had occupied himself in winter town (whatever that meant) so the boy had gone exploring, "I'd already been to the crypts, and the hot springs, so that left-" he gestures, and while he doesn't seem nervous, he is not exactly comfortable. This is a good mark in Lyanna's book, because if she is being honest with herself, the godswood can even be forbidding for her, a Stark born in Winterfell.

"I can convince Ser Nestor to help us too. My father has paid for five years of service," Jaime says the last bit through his smirk, "so he said his honor meant he would follow me north."

And he does, that is, Jaime convinces Ser Nestor to help all three of them practice. Ser Nestor is a big man, not necessarily tall, but wide across, with short legs a barrel chest and a head full of brittle mouse brown hair.

Benjen, being young and polite, nods his head, but Lyanna and Ser Nestor don't know what to do with each other. He, a man who had somehow agreed to teach them all to wield a blade, she the young girl who shirked a Lady's duties.

So baldly she says, "Why did the Lord of the West hire a man from the Vale to teach his son to fight."

And Ser Nestor answers unapologetically, "Because I am the best."

But he's not is he, The Ward- Jaime, regularly comes close to beating him, though Ser Nestor is a man grown, and Jaime is a green boy and her age.

When she tells him such he says, "Being the best fighter does not necessarily make one the best teacher."

Lyanna does not bother to try to puzzle this out.

But she does attack him with relish, at least when Jaime is not tied up in his squiring duties, or Ser Nestor "all tied up" in winter town.

When it is the three of them, that is: Jaime, Lyanna and Ben, they go to the godswood, for Ser Nestor won't touch it. Though, they have to be careful, many of the keeps denizens keep the old gods. There are good days, where she feels satisfied with the bone deep ache of skills well learned, and there are the amusing days where she manages to pierce Jaime's prickly southern sensibilities by catching him in the face with finely wrought snowballs. But then there are also days where Benjen's skills catch her off guard, or Ser Nestor says "relax your shoulders" one too many times.

But the worst are the ones where they are all trapped in the keep for the snowstorms. Days and days of monotony, of lessons and sewing, and counting, wanting to go outside, and incessant teasing from Ben. It is winter after all, no matter that they would all prefer spring.

Often times, its on these days that she catches the ward Jaime grinding his teeth, answering letters from his father or attempting to write his sister in his quick busy scrawl. He never lets her see these letter; but she knows from lessons that his spelling is terrible.

Winter is perhaps the worst for Jaime. The West is farther North than four of the other realms, but it is nothing to The North. In fact she rather enjoyed the look on his face when he first saw the size of a snowdrift after a mild storm.

Still they entertain themselves. During a particularly terrible storm she catches him lingering outside the lady's solar, though it hasn't been used as such since her mother died. Instead old-nan gathers the children and tells her tales. Jaime stands, trailing his hands on the walls, still surprised by how warm they are, when they catch him. Lyanna slides to make room for him next to her; so that he might watch the snow pound the window and listen Nan spin her tales.

If the old woman wants the southerner gone she makes no indication. Lyanna suspects that she secretly enjoys having a new ear for her tales. For all the Ben and Lyanna are of the North, they have heard many of her tales a hundred times before, and while Jaime often keeps his thoughts hidden behind his smile, even he likes a good tale. Especially during a snowstorm.

"And Mad Ax would take off his shoes and sneak about the Nightfort slaying his brothers while they slept. Sometimes the men would wake in the morning and try to follow his bloody footprints, but before he reached his rooms Mad Ax would pull on his boots and walk the rest of the way clad so that none would know from whence he came.

"He was only caught when the Lord Commander himself switched places with a man and pretended to sleep. When Mad Ax opened to door expecting one of his sleeping brothers and stood over his bed, the Lord Commander pulled out a hidden blade and slew the man before he could kill him."

Jaime, curious, asks, "But why would they even let a man like that near the wall?"

"Don't be stupid, most of the men at the wall are criminals." And then she elbows him, "Everybody knows that."

Jaime says nothing, only elbows her back, but Benjen, says, "Not many southerners would know. But it's common knowledge here."

"The Wall." Jaime says, tasting the word, and with a candidness that is almost out of character, says, "My brother Tyrion would like to see it."

Lyanna says, "Why would you want to see that stinky old thing? Do you want to be a Black Brother? An honorable watcher on the wall? I don't know if they take slimy southerners," after which she gets him just below his ribs.

He says as he pinches her back, "As if boney little girls know a thing about honor. Besides why would I want to be a Black Brother?"

Jaime seems to want to say more, but instead smiles, it infuriates Lyanna, the way he does that.

"The King's hand then."

Jaime visibly pales but quickly gathers this face and thoughts together, _ah, there it is, another smile_.

"Father is hand of the King."

"Is he?"

Lyanna had heard it said before before, she just doesn't know what it means, so she says, "What is the Hand anyway?"

"It means that he rules the kingdom."

Ben seems as puzzled by this as she is, so he says, "The King rules the kingdom."

Jaime uses his peculiar look, only this time he half smirks too, in that way that he has when he thinks he is about to be clever, "The King is mad," and then, "Everybody knows that."

They have all forgotten old Nan sits before them, but when she bobs her head in a little bow, Jaime turns first.

"It is treason to say so," Rickard Stark says as he towers above them.

Next to her Jaime stands, why does he stand? She doesn't know, but he stands nonetheless and says in his boyish voice, "Even if it is true?"

"Especially if its true. The Lords Paramount swear an oath of loyalty to the king, one that you will swear too when you take your father's place. The Kings keeps order in the land. So by our honor, we owe him our respect."

Jaime wants to say something more, she can see it in the twist of his mouth, but must ultimately see her father's wisdom, because he smiles and inclines his head, the closest thing to a bow he has ever done.

He says, "Lord Stark."


End file.
